“Not even one of the 27 was a source,” he said, adding that, during the duration of the Second Intifada a decade ago, “only one-and-a-half” actual sources were killed amid a spate of executions that claimed many dozens of lives.

The Shin Bet security service said it could not comment on the identity of its sources but confirmed that those executed during Operation Protective Edge had all been held in prison in Gaza during the hostilities. That being the case, it’s likely none of the executed would have had any information that might have played a role in an array of Israeli operations in Gaza, from locating rocket launch sites to targeted killings.

Two weeks ago Israel killed “Hamas’s head of southern command Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Rafah commander Raed Al-Attar, and senior weapons smuggler Muhammad Barhum.” This was shortly after Israel struck Mohammad Deif, a senior Hamas commander, whose fate is uncertain, along with three other targets. While most of the executions were carried out after the strikes, the official said that none of the four were “targeted on the basis of human intelligence.”

Tawfiq Tirawi, a former Palestinian security official, said Wednesday on a Fatah television station, “who are these people who were executed? Some of those who were executed were former officers with the PA’s security apparatus.” In 2007, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, they killed and wounded hundreds of Fatah security personnel.